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Listed house 2.5 weeks ago and no showings!
Should I panic?
We listed our house almost 3 weeks ago because we had a contingency on another house. The other house fell through - someone outbid us without a contingency, but we decided to leave it on the market. We haven't had one showing - not one!
The house is very aggressively priced for the neighborhood and is lower than all the comps nearby. We have an open house this upcoming weekend that I hope will generate some interest, but I'm skeptical at this point.
We're beginning to feel like our agent is doing enough to get the word out there. He's mailed out postcards to the neighborhood, has handouts on our sign, but that's pretty much it. No signs in the neighbor that we have a house for sale (which I thought was common). I thought for sure we would have someone in by now at least to look around!
Am I off base in my thinking? Is it common not to get any showings after almost 3 weeks on the market? Anything we can do?
Re: Listed house 2.5 weeks ago and no showings!
Is your listing on the MLS? On the major websites?
ETA: How many pictures? And are they any good?
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In this market, I don't think anything is "usual" or "common" - except for frustration!
Our first showing for our condo was about 2.5 weeks after the listing went up. And then we didn't have another showing for over a month! I was getting frustrated with our realtor - thinking she wasn't doing enough - but with our condo, you can't have signs out, and we didn't want an open house and thought mailings to the neighborhood were pointless, so really there wasn't much she could do! I even retook pictures for the listing because I never 100% liked the pics she took.
Buuuuuuut. About a month after the first showing, we had a second showing and that couple ended up putting in an offer and we close in just over two weeks!
So only two showing, and slow to start, but we still ended up selling our 1 bedroom condo (hard sell in this market) in less than two months! We were priced very competatively, below comps, and had staged the heck out the place - but even with that, we were expecting a massively long timeline and were shocked with a quick sale. In the end, we were simply incredibly lucky and the right buyer came along at the right time.
My point is - yes, the delay to get rolling is frustrating and it *could* be a sign that your realtor needs to do more to shine a spotlight on your home. OR is could just be this horrible market and the time of year (August is VERY busy for most people, so house-shopping takes a backseat to the last hurrah of summer and back to school stuff) - combined with all sorts of other factors outside of your control.
Good luck - and I hope you get that first showing soon!
I would say we're priced pretty aggressively. I just did a search and came up with 66 homes for sale in our city of 3 bedroom, at least 1 bath (we have 1.5) and we're pretty much right in the middle in terms of pricing. We are the only home in our neighborhood for sale.
Hopefully things will go well this weekend and we'll get some people in to see the house. We can lower the price some and I think that might be our next step!
Not sure where you are, but our area right now is super slow. We are not getting calls on anything except rentals. Our houses are priced very agressively as we buy at low at auction, renovate, then sell. Even with the low prices we are just not getting showings. We have talked to other investors and REA who are experiencing the same thing. Just a really sucky market!
What is the average days on market for your area? Good luck with the open house, hope things pick up for you.
BTW, we don't normally see additional signage in our area except for sign in front of house and then "open house" sign/arrows on OH days. Have people been stopping by to pick up handouts from your sign?
I think you just have the disadvantage of listing at a bad time in the market. My house has been sale for almost 3 months now. We have only had 3 showings!!!!
Everyone says its priced right, we have good pics. The market just really sucks now. People are trying to get a deal and sit waiting for the houses to get lower an lower. Well guess what people, you are missing out on a great house because we are not going any lower. Sucks for us because we need a bigger house for our kids.
I don't know anyone who recently had showing with in the first month or so. Maybe this just depends on where you live.
Good luck!
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This is what I was going to suggest. I posted photos on here and got some great feedback, both on staging and ways to improve the composition of the photos. How neutral and staged is your home? How old/dated/dark is your kitchen, flooring, bathrooms, etc compared to your comps? Is your house spotless? I know it's a PITA, but every little thing counts.
That said, our realtor says July and Aug are dead months in the realty world. Buyers on on vacation. It's too hot to look at houses. Things pick up starting in Sept. Hang in there. This is a long haul.
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This is a good idea. I would also make sure your virtual tour is a real tour of your home, not just a slideshow of your listing photos. If your realtor is unwilling or unable to do that, then create your own and upload it to YouTube, with a link for the video in your listing.
As others have said, August can be a dead month, so I wouldn't be too concerned about the lack of showings right now. If this continues after Labor Day, then I would reevaluate things.